Scripting

My IT department is currently trying to make our Windows deployment process smoother.  We use a K2000 for scripted Windows 7 Enterprise installations (can't use images for a number of reasons).  One major hiccup in the process is that once the install is done, we need to spend hours running updates on the machine.  This is an issue because we deploy a decent amount of machines and would prefer to spend our man-hours more effectively then running updates for hours.  We have to be proactive about updating because we get a large amount of kickback from corporate IT for having "dirty machines" on our networks.  We've tried to incorporate a post-install K2000 task that uses WuInstall to pull down updates from our SUS server and reboot as necessary, but after the first reboot the machine just boots up into Windows and the task stops.  I've also looked into slipstreaming updates into our windows install media, but the machines either fail during installation or come online still needing 200+ updates (maybe they aren't being installed?).  That just seems like an unreliable method.  Can anyone recommend a better solution to the problem that we're having?

Thanks!